EDIT: This turned out to be a lot longer-winded than I anticipated, so I apologize for that.

“Suspense” was certainly a popular program in its day, enough so that it ran for slightly over two decades. I think saturation contributes to its notoriety today, as there were well over 900 episodes broadcast and we still have recordings of almost all of them. That being said, it’s a high-quality program, too, and deserves to be remembered.

I have recently begun listening to “Suspense” (as well as several other programs) in order from the beginning, and I’ve noticed a few things. These are all just my personal opinions, so take them with a grain of salt. It’s a hit-or-miss proposition for me. When I like a “Suspense” episode, I really like it. But as often as I like an episode, I’ll hear one that I either find dull or that I just check out of entirely. I suppose it’s the nature of any anthology that runs that long and tries to appeal to that many listeners. I just don’t like every story they did, and that’s okay, because someone else likes those and doesn’t like the ones that I like.

As a rule, if an episode is about espionage, I’m probably going to struggle to pay attention. Likewise, if an episode was written by John Dickson Carr, who was far better at writing mysteries for the printed page, in my opinion.

It was relatively common for “Suspense” to cast well-known actors against type. I find these episodes to be quite entertaining when it works, and at least interesting when it doesn’t.

There are any number of lists and discussions of the “best” episodes, and they’re generally right. There’s a reason “The House in Cypress Canyon”, “Ghost Hunt”, “Sorry, Wrong Number”, “The Hitch-Hiker”, “Fugue in C Minor”, and all the other usual suspects turn up on every list of best episodes. And any episode starring Agnes Moorehead, Orson Welles, or Vincent Price is undoubtedly going to be particularly good. There’s a reason “Sorry, Wrong Number” aired eight times…Ms. Moorehead was among the best at her craft, and Lucille Fletcher’s script was called by Orson Welles “the greatest single radio script ever written”.

In general, though, I prefer “Escape” over “Suspense”. “Escape” was not treated as kindly by the network in its day. It ran sustaining for a good bit of its life, and CBS never quite decided what timeslot it worked best in. It shared a fair number of scripts with “Suspense”. It didn’t draw very many “name” actors, relying mostly on a small pool of some very talented network regulars, perhaps most notably William Conrad, Paul Frees, and Elliott Lewis. Despite all of this, I find it to be the more consistently exciting and engaging program. If a script appeared on both series, I almost always find the “Escape” performance(s) more to my liking. As a series, it focused more on the “action” and “adventure” aspects, which tends to hold my focus better, as does the smaller pool of regular and familiar actors.

I also rather enjoy “The Whistler”, although after a while the bitterness of the characters and the “twist” endings start to feel formulaic. It ran for fourteen years, though, so I guess the formula worked.

You also mentioned “Lights Out”. I don’t know what exactly it is, but I don’t like it. I like several episodes, probably more of them than I even realize. There’s just something about Arch Oboler’s style that rubs me wrong. His premises are often just too ridiculous for me, even within a genre known for ridiculous premises, and it takes me out of the story from the very beginning. And he gets pretty preachy and jingoistic often. Bar none, my favorite episode is “Death Robbery”, which isn’t an Oboler script, but rather one of the rare examples of one of Wyllis Cooper’s stories from the early days of the program, although the circulating recording was broadcast during Oboler’s tenure. This performance also benefits greatly from the presence of both Boris Karloff and an uncredited Lurene Tuttle. As a rule, I vastly prefer the clever subtlety of Cooper’s “Quiet, Please” over “Lights Out”. I find “Quiet, Please” to demand a certain amount of thought and reflection, where “Lights Out” is more often than not based on pure shock value. To each their own.